Category: Vietnam

Asian Adventure: Exploring the Mekong Delta

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What a fascinating 24 hours we’ve had!  We left Saigon yesterday morning for the trip by car to the Mekong River, about 4 hours total. We were told that before a strikingly stunning new bridge across the river, you had to take a ferry. The ferry ride wasn’t particularly long, but the wait for the ferry could be one to three hours.  Hence, the new bridge has shortened everyone’s travel time.

We boarded our boat, Bassac, immediately upon arrival and met our fellow passengers:  5 other couples, two from the UK, one retired and one very young and three French couples.  There was an English speaking guide on board for us and a separate one for the French people.  The boat is small and built in the style of barges that were used to carry rice.  The cabins are very compact with just enough space to turn around in and no more, but more importantly, they are air-conditioned, essential in the heat and humidity.  It turns out March is the hottest month of the year with August next!  After a delicious lunch of prawns and fried calamari to start followed by fried catfish, a stir-fried beef dish, sauteed pumpkin flowers (really pretty and tasty!) and steamed rice, finished off with a plate of fresh tropical fruits. we had several hours to just relax and enjoy the view.

In the late afternoon, we disembarked into a small boat with a simple motor sitting low to the water and cruised along for about 10-15 minutes until we came to a small village.  Our guide then proceeded to lead us on a very informative nature walk naming all the various trees and fruits and breaking off leaves and stems to let us sniff the various herbs and flavoring agents.  This area is rich in sweet and pungent fruits of many types from the more familiar pineapple, watermelon and coconut to mango, dragon fruit, manogstene and jackfruit.  I liked the mangostene (slightly sour midst the sweet), but found the jackfruit too sweet.  The last stop on our trek was a villager’s house where we were served tea made from the leaves of the pandan tree and a selection of fruits plus some mouth-filling preserved ginger.

Like lunch, dinner consisted of a selection of Vietnamese dishes which were the equal of lunch.  After breakfast this morning, we disembarked for a stop at a workshop to see the making of rice paper sheets (circular in shape) that becomes a crispy cracker like a pappadum, rice that is heated with black sand and pops like popcorn, and a small distillery used to make a very strong rice liqueur.  We had the opportunity to sample all of these and ended this visit with yet more tea (jasmine this time) and a selection of little coconut and rice candies.

On our smaller boat seen at the landing below, we passed through a busy floating market.  This is a wholesale affair where the farmers bring their produce on board to sell to the shops.  The growers stay here living on their boats for several days until all the vegetables are sold.  Each boat has a stick on it with a sample of what they are selling–sweet potato, for example, or pineapple.

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The last stop of the morning was a walk through a riverside village market.  I love the colors and shapes of all the produce that is grown here and continue to be amazed by the amount of fresh meat, live poultry, and live fish that are laid out for sale. [My intention was to load more photos here, but the hotel Wi-Fi is incredibly slow so will have to upload them later on.]

I learned from our guides that the patterned masks we see on the women on motor scooters are not for disease prevention or to combat the pollution, but rather for sun protection to prevent their skin from getting darker.  The ideal is very white fair skin and if your skin is too dark, you will have a hard time getting a husband.  Our guide, wearing a long-sleeved sweater on our hike, was even asked by the other guide why she did it and if she thought her husband would “quit her.”

She also told us that here in the south, in their families, people have numbers as well as names.  The eldest child is number 2 (there is no number 1), and so she is known to her brothers as “Sister 2.”  When one marries, you acquire the number of your husband as well.  So, since her husband is the third child or number 4, to his siblings, she is “Sister 4.”  These numbers are also used in combination with names when addressing elders such as aunts and uncles or grandparents.  She offered even more examples, but I have to admit to getting a bit lost in some of the complexity!

This afternoon we returned to Ho Chi Minh City which now seems bigger and brighter and busy after our sojourn on the Mekong.  Tomorrow we leave Vietnam for Cambodia and the temples around Siem Reap.

 

Asian Adventure: Steamy Saigon

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Today we left our hotel early and flew from Hue to Saigon.  The official name of the city is Ho Chi Minh City, the name since unification in 1975, but the airport code is SGN.  We’ve discovered that in the north almost everyone calls it HCM City; the older generation is more apt to call it Saigon while for the younger people, 20’s, 30’s 40’s, it’s definitely HCM.  And sometimes people say Saigon because it’s shorter and easier than all the syllables of HCM.  So really, I should say we are now in Ho Chi Minh City, a city with 24 numbered districts.  The district numbers are frequently cited as in District X is where the government is headquartered and District Y is mostly residential with more cars than scooters.  Over the years, communities were added to HCM City and given district numbers and some districts were re-combined or divided.

Our tour guide met us and our itinerary said we’d go to our hotel via the Cu Chi Tunnel.  “Via” turned out to mean an hour and a half’s ride to the tunnel and after lunch and touring the complex, an hour and a half to the hotel.  Our guide here, Huy, is very knowledgeable about the Vietnam War and gave us a comprehensive history lesson with precise dates on the way to the tunnel.

IMG_5613 IMG_5615We had lunch at a lovely restaurant by the river with a pleasant breeze and watched the water hyacinths floating with the current. We felt like we were moving too!

 

 

 

This complex outside Saigon was where Vietnamese guerrilla fighters resisting the Americans lived, worked and holed up.  They had bunkers for cooking, meetings, sewing uniforms, and making weapons.  Underground is an extremely elaborate network of tunnels at three different depths–3 meters, 5-6 meters, and 9 meters with branches and arms, all designed to make it difficult for the enemy to find and attack them.  We watched a video about life in the village before the war when the inhabitants cultivated fruit trees and tapped rubber trees, had a demonstration of how someone could easily get in and out of the tunnel without being detected, and were shown numerous examples of various traps designed to maim or kill unsuspecting soldiers.

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And for those who were brave enough, it was possible to go down into one of the narrow dark tunnels and advance in it for some distance before surfacing.  My spouse briefly went underground; I stayed topside.  Today, this is a very peaceful spot, but the exhibits and the bunkers and tunnel remind one of how horrible and devastating war is no matter who is the enemy.  In this case, we Americans were.

 
Our first glimpses of Saigon reveal it to be the most modern Vietnamese city we’ve yet seen.  It stretches along a curve in the Saigon River and looks prosperous with skyscrapers, more businesses with English names, high end stores, even more motor scooters than Hanoi, and a bustling, urban sophistication.  Here nearly all of the adults on scooters are wearing helmets (not so in the north), although I saw an occasional child riding with a parent and the adult had a helmet on, but not so the kid.  Despite the humidity, those on scooters had long sleeves and some women were even wearing sweatshirts or jackets in addition to the very common face mask (for sun protection we were told).

But, these larger Vietnamese cities remain a study in contrasts; while there are beautiful shops and shiny new buildings, some life is still lived on the street, on the sidewalk.  This was certainly true in Hanoi which had less evidence of the prosperity.  Even here, I saw the low to the ground red or blue plastic chairs and tiny tables outside a storefront where residents could enjoy pho or noodles or coffee. While you could say that this is just their version of cafe society, and to some extent it is, it is more”down and dirty” that we would expect at home.

Asian Adventure: Hue Sights

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Today was very hot and humid and the sun was out–almost for the first time since we arrived in Vietnam!  This morning we boarded one of the smaller colorful dragon boats that ply the Perfume River here in Hue.  It was just us and our guide plus the pilot of the boat and a woman vendor who also assisted with docking the boat.  She had an array of goods for sale—bookmarks and small prints, wooden carved items and clothing and handbags, all ostensibly hand made.  Each boat seems to have a vendor on board and they can be very persistent in trying to get you to buy something. The river was a greenish brown and very calm and the riverbanks lush and green.

The boat pokes along very slowly and it was about a half hour to an historic pagoda complex set up on a hill overlooking the river. Surrounding the pagoda are a series of buildings all related to the Buddhist monks who live here.  Our guide told us that about 60 monks make this monastery their home.  Wandering about was pleasant as it was still only mid-morning and there was a slight breeze.

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We then boarded another dragon boat and cruised along the river for another hour to reach the tomb of Emperor Tu Duc, who reigned for 35 years, the longest of any of the Nguyen family, from 1848–1883.  Upon docking, we scrambled up the grassy bank and then walked a few hundred yards past souvenir and concession stands to the entrance to his palatial and expansive grounds.

 

 

 

It is a place of great serenity, beautifully landscaped and very quiet.  And there were no tour groups in evidence during our visit.  The complex has a series of pavilions and halls lined up one after another and leading up to the actual tomb itself. I loved all the red decor especially the many many red doors!

Compared to the lavish red and gold temple-like buildings, the mausoleum building is gray stone with a round stone wall encircling it and rather forbidding looking.  This building is no longer open to the public and one source states that the emperor was not really buried here, but in a secret location.  He had a hundred wives and concubines and they lived both during his lifetime and after his death in some of the other buildings here.  Despite the heat, definitely worth the visit!

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Asian Adventure: Road from Hoi An to Hue

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Yesterday we traveled by car from Hoi An to Hue via the Marble Mountains and the Cham Museum.  From Hoi An, we drove through Danang and along the coast passing many ocean resorts with new ones under construction.  Tourism is big business for both Danang and Hoi An.  As any of my generation will recall, Danang was the site of a U.S. military base and also the scene of intense American and North Vietnamese bombing during the Vietnam War.  Much of Hue was destroyed although the hotel we are staying in escaped damage. It was built by the French in 1930 and is stately and elegant.  About 10 years ago, two additional wings were added.  Today the U.S. base in Danang is a Vietnamese army facility.

Our road trip today involved more stops with the local people selling their goods and we encountered bunches of tour buses.  But you have to admire individuals who are motivated to try to make a buck.  That said, we decided that buying a large marble statue and arranging to ship it home was not the best idea.  The marble carving shop’s array included everything from tiny animal figurines to larger than life size smiling Buddhas (generally in yellow gold marble), tigers, zebras, swans and the like.  Colors were peach, melon, gray and pure white.

In Danang itself, we admired the yellow dragon bridge and made a brief stop at the Cham Museum to view the sandstone sculptures of gods and goddesses made many centuries ago. The Cham people ruled this area of central Vietnam from the 7th century into the 19th century until they were taken over by the Vietnamese.

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IMG_8889We then went on to the Marble Mountains which are also in Danang and a popular tourist site. We explored the Huyen Khong cave which consists of a series of altars, grottos, and sculptures depicting heaven and hell and the judges who decide where you will spend the afterlife.  Animal heads like this cat line the walkway leading to the entrance.

The cave opened up on several levels with stone steps of varying depths and only spotty lighting here and there on the altars and shrines.  It was very dim!

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After snaking our way over and around the mountain, we had lunch at a large casual restaurant on the ocean and enjoyed the view.  After dodging an earlier attempt to induce us to buy, we surrendered and purchased two packs of postcards.  Good salesman that the young man was he tried to persuade us to buy the other variety packs as well.

The remainder of the drive was less scenic, some scruffy rice paddies here and there, and we happily arrived at our hotel in Hue around 2 pm. We spent the rest of the day unwinding and sampling dinner in the hotel restaurant. Today we will explore Hue, an important royal city located on the Perfume River.  It is where the Nguyen family ruled under French protection from 1802 to 1945.